Myanmar’s Rohingya need tomorrow’s fairer world today

Myanmar’s appointment of a Kofi Annan-chaired commission to look at Rakhine state is a positive step for the country’s Rohingya Muslims, but cannot be allowed lead to another year of waiting for action. Steps should be taken immediately to ensure the Rohingya’s human rights are guaranteed, Ronan Lee writes.

Punitive travel restrictions have been forced on this Muslim minority for decades meaning generations of Rohingya have needed costly official permits to travel, even to adjacent villages. This impacts every aspect of daily life. The Rohingya are also subject to restrictions on their ability to marry, have children and own property.

Long-term mistreatment of the Rohingya was compounded when communal violence engulfed Rakhine state during 2012. This violence left 192 people dead and 140,000 displaced. The vast majority (120,000) have not been able to rebuild or return to their homes, victims of a government strategy designed to prevent future violence by keeping Buddhist and Muslim communities separated.

The Muslim population suffered most in 2012 and, accounting for the overwhelming majority of the displaced, have been forced to endure the bulk of the government’s ‘solution’. My fieldwork confirms travel restrictions in particular are having a devastating impact on the Rohingya’s ability to access healthcare, education and livelihood opportunities.

Unsurprisingly, Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya has led to criticism and calls for action from human rights advocates, the UN and US President Obama. Myanmar’s neighbours are also losing patience because of the large number of desperate Rohingya boat refugees arriving on their shores, as many as 25,000 during the 2015 sailing season alone. In 2015 the International State Crime Initiative ominously concluded that genocide is taking place, warning of the danger of “annihilation of the country’s Rohingya population”.

Let’s be clear – the Rohingya are forced to endure deplorable human rights abuses and this needs to be immediately addressed.

At the core of the Rohingya’s lack of rights is a dispute about the legitimacy of their claim to citizenship. The Rohingya claim a centuries-long connection to Rakhine but this history is disputed by many in Myanmar including the government, which considers them to be Colonial-era migrants who are therefore not entitled to citizenship rights as an indigenous ethnic group. Myanmar’s government has treated the Rohingya as resident aliens and objects to using the name “Rohingya”, instead calling them “Bengali”, a name seen as indicating their recent migration.

Matters are further complicated because the interests of the ethnic “Rakhine” – Buddhists who make up the state’s majority – are often presented by their political elites as opposed to those of the Rohingya Muslims. This means even small steps towards safeguarding the Rohingya’s human rights can be cause for protest from ‘nationalists’ claiming to represent Rakhine/Buddhist interests.

Rakhine state is one the poorest places on the planet. The UN estimates its poverty rate is 78 per cent, around twice the national rate with average annual household income of just US $500. Only 37.8 per cent of people have access to improved drinking water, 31.8 per cent access to improved sanitation and just one in eight (12.8 per cent) have electricity for lighting.

Myanmar’s new government, dominated by State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, has been under domestic pressure to address Rakhine state’s economic woes and under international pressure to address the Rohingya issue. Suu Kyi built her international reputation as an advocate for democracy and human rights but surprised many with her attitude towards the Rohingya. Her party, the National League for Democracy even sought to placate Buddhist nationalists by fielding no Muslims among its 1090 nationwide candidates despite Muslims accounting for 4 per cent of the country’s population. The current national parliament is Myanmar’s first since independence without a single Muslim lawmaker.

Myanmar’s mistreatment of the Rohingya has been the cause of significant international reputational damage to the country. However, Suu Kyi is showing herself to be a wily politician – two weeks prior to her scheduled meeting with President Obama in Washington, when the Rohingya’s situation will undoubtedly be on the agenda – she avoided embarrassment by announcing a high-profile commission to examine the situation in Rakhine state.

The advisory commission of nine is made up of six Myanmar members representing the government, ethnic Rakhine Buddhist and Myanmar Muslim communities plus three international members including Annan as chair. Unsurprisingly, nationalists objected to the inclusion of any foreigners and immediately criticised the commission including debating it in parliament. The commission is tasked with considering humanitarian and developmental issues, access to services and basic rights and the security of people living in Rakhine state. Fieldwork carried out in northern Rakhine state with Anthony Ware during 2015 indicates that Annan and his commission members are likely to find surprising reserves of goodwill among both the ethnic Rakhine and Rohingya communities. These two groups want to live peacefully and were better off economically before their communities were separated.

But the Annan commission is not scheduled to make its recommendations until the second half of 2017, with any implementation to follow after that. For many Rohingya who today struggle to access basic healthcare services, this will simply be too long to wait.

The commission’s appointment is undoubtedly a positive move that can bring Rakhine state closer to a long-term peace while safeguarding everyone’s rights. The timing of its appointment indicates the value of continued international pressure on Myanmar to live up to its human rights obligations.

The challenge for the international community is not to lose sight of the urgent need to address the Rohingya’s human rights situation. Travel restrictions that prevent Rohingya accessing medical care and education can and should be removed today. The Kofi Annan Foundation works “Towards a fairer, more peaceful world”. This is a worthy goal but one Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims need to see realised sooner rather than later.

Ronan Lee is researching the impact of Myanmar’s political and economic liberalisation on the Muslim Rohingya. He is a PhD candidate at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University.

This article is a collaboration between New Mandala and Policy Forum — Asia and the Pacific’s leading platform for policy analysis and debate.

‘To be clear’ the author is a member of that great flock who prefer to cling to the fantasies doled out to them by captive governments and media, rather than face the facts.

Why is India building a 3000km barrier fence along its border with Bangladesh, at vast expense? How many of the ‘native’ Rohingya in northern Rakhine state can actually speak Burmese? The Rohingya National Army is equipped and controlled by Saudi Arabia, which is in turn equipped and controlled by whom?

‘The Rohingya claim a centuries-long connection to Rakhine but this history is disputed by many in Myanmar’. The author omits the phrase ‘….and every serious scholar in the field’, thereby suggesting that this is merely local pseudo-history, when in fact the opposite is true.

In British colonial times Muslims in northern Rakhine amounted to less than five percent of the population, and in the present day they amount to 80-98% of the population. What can account for this extraordinary demographic change? Perhaps the number of illegal migrants that Bangladesh implored Myanmar not to return in 1975 amounted to rather more than the official figure of half a million. The number of Bangladeshi migrants fleeing political, environmental and economic instability in their homeland since 1975 is reckoned in the millions.

What is interesting about the ‘Rohingya’ is the way that human rights and other issues that formerly belonged to the Western liberal tradition have been skillfully twisted into information warfare in order to serve Western corporate and governmental interests. In this way, Vladimir Putin is a brutal homophobe, and the Burmese are savage racists and bigots. The instant that Russia and Myanmar agree to adopt vassal status to the American ‘international community’ these accusations will evaporate, and thereafter they will be able to commit genuine crimes with comparative impunity.

The article says that “the current national parliament is Myanmar’s first since independence without a single Muslim lawmaker.” This assertion has been repeated often by the media, but it’s not exactly true. During the Ne Win era, after the 1974 Constitution had been approved, there was a People’s Parliament, admittedly a completely toothless body whose election was not very democratic either, but a national parliament nonetheless. The People’s Parliament convened in four terms; the third didn’t have a single Muslim member, and the second one had just one (for Arakan/Rakhine State). Apparently, there’s no information on its members’ religion for the first and the fourth terms. (See the book by Yoshihiro Nakanishi, “Strong Soldiers, Failed Revolution”, p. 187).

Anyway, small consolation that the only precedent of a Muslim-free parliament in post-independence Burma’s history is to be found during the Ne Win dictatorship…

The significance of the creation of the Commission is the willingness of ASSK’s government to allow for international scrutiny. (Full transparency, my esteemed former colleague and former dean, Ghassan Salame, is, I gather, a member of the Annan Commission. )

Perhaps in neighboring Thailand the proud Siamese (who have always treated the Burmese with disdain) could learn something to be applied to southern Thailand? Certainly Thai-only attempts to end the ethno-islamic insurgency there have not born much fruit.

To return to the substance of the article, I do agree with the previous comment that this is a useful summary of the current situation, unlike heated polemics on the term Rohingya. Whether it is a recent term or not is, beside the point. Benedict Anderson, amongst others made the point long ago that identities are constructed and then take on legal/moral forms. For example there were no “Italians” before the reunification of Italy but a progressive movement of taking on that sense of being amongst Venetians, Milanese, etc…. Actually it is often the outsider (e.g. the British in what became Australia) who impose a category which then becomes integrated by the concerned population and ultimately a basis for their own identity. Ditto the Moros in the Philippines.

The term “Rohingya” did not exist 20 years ago, though these Bengali Muslims have been migrating into Myanmar for 100 years or more (and are not indigenous. What matters is that they are NOT indigenous. Myanmar has NO INDO-ARYAN ethnic group that is indigenous. Now, mercantile Indians in Yangon came in with the British, but do not call themselves, GUJARATIS, SIKHS, PUNJABIS, TAMILS, but except the Burmese polity without whining. The “Rohingya” want special treatment egged on by bored Palestinian whiners who have found DASSK is a true Burmese patriot and not a Western toady. NAMES matter and so do demographics and origins. Bangladeshi Muslims should be deported from Myanmar, even it takes ten years. Bengali Muslim male sexual habits and Sheikh Hasina Wajed are NOT Myanmar’s problem.

ASSK has created this commission solely on account of Western pressure. The Burmese are fully capable of sorting out their own problems. I fail to see the value of ‘international scrutiny’. The West is hardly in a position to lecture others on refugees and human rights.

‘At the core of the Rohingya’s lack of rights is a dispute about the legitimacy of their claim to citizenship.’ Since the ‘Rohingya’ identity is an invention so is their claim for citizenship. Their struggle for an independent Islamic state in Arakan is completely illegitimate.

In my opinion, Myanmar should dismantle and remove all religious sites and infrastructure from Northern Rakhine state, deport all Bangladeshis into this region and cede it to Bangladesh. In exchange, Bangladesh can facilitate a population transfer of the Jumma people. Finally, Myanmar should follow India’s example and build a vast security fence along the Eastern bank of the Lay Mro river, complete with minefields.

“Accept” not “except”. Dementia again. In addition, were I to suggest Mr Smith’s reasonable column, all manner of charges of racism and anti-Islam would pound me, as had happened already, and I find interesting only in my instance, when I echo Mr Smith and Mr Camroux, to some extent, I seem to be the chosen scapegoat for Western neo-Colonists of Myanmar. I am sure the name COHEN has nothing to do with it at NM.

Wouldn’t worry about the verbal pounding – does not hurt at all. There is nothing wrong with refugees and you are right. Rohingyas are refugees from the Bangladash war and the split of India / Pakistan, then East Pakistan to Bangladash. Even in Pakistan, the bangladashi refugees are called Rohingas.

It would not be so much of a problem, except (I am in danger of being called a MUslim hater now) for the fact that these Islamic fanatical types insist that the host country allow them to impose fanatical 15th century form of customs and lifestyle. (check out Europes problem with Muslims insistance of masking their faces in public and public places – destroying effectiveness of all CCTV systems, face recognition etc.)
I have no symphaty for people like these. If you run away from an oppresive country to start a new lif, then start a new one. DON’T bring your own oppresive ways into the new location…

We have seen such consequences of “over-hyped” Islam in Malaysia, except there Muslims are 62 % and not 15 %. I gues I will have tget used to being called anti-Islam, despite my Malaysian wife, defense of Ahmadis, and innumerable Malay and Javanese friends. These are the same armchair radical Leftists who say: “Yezidi ? Who are the Yezidi” ? Well, since I haven’t seen any recent Unitarian or Taoist acts of genocide, I can’t be as falsely and stupidly complacent as the academic deadwood, almost Jesuit-like in their conviction that we can all do bad, and therefore, don’t pick on the ones that do bad, or have that potential, because your Quaker neighbour (or in your contect, Hokkien neighbor) may hack your head off. Nah, I don’t think so.

It is a cliché, but all identities are inventions some simply of longer lineage and durability than others. For example I doubt if the hypenated terms Asian-American or Sino-Thai existed 50 years ago. But of course, the reality of these communities did exist. So what if the Rohingyas called themselves, or rather classified themselves, as Bengali Muslims some time ago, the reality on the ground was that of a distinct community within Burma’s internationally recognized national borders. At what point to does a community become “indigenous”?

As Nick Farrelly argued a few months ago on NM there is a structural problem in Myanmar. In defining the limits of the seven states and seven districts /regions, ethnicity is of the outmost importance. The seven states are those of recognized ethnic ‘nationalities’ (often with distinct religious identities as well) and the seven districts/regions predominately Bamar. Ipso facto Burmese citizenship is linked to a homeland or at least a defined territory. Given these systemic parameters it is therefore totally logically for the Rohingya to demand possession of a territory as a prerequisite for citizenship, for this is structurally the way Myanmar is organized.

As Nick argued in his article – for which he was much reviled by the ‘usual suspects’ (cf supra) – it is the gordian knot between territory-ethnic nationality-citizenship that needs to be, if not broken, at least made more flexible.

Asian Americans and Thai Chinese were invited into their host countries. The Bangladeshis sneaked over the border into Myanmar in the full knowledge that they were committing a crime.

I can’t think of another example where a group of migrants have sneaked into someone’s territory and then claimed that it actually belonged to them. Whatever they choose to call themselves the fact remains that are illegal aliens, squatters and land grabbers.

As for ‘constructed identities’ whilst it is true that everything is ultimately a construct, for most people their ethnic identity is very real and very important.
This is another example of liberals acting as an unwitting agent for a rather sinister agenda. It may appear that ethnic identities need to be broken or made more flexible in order to reduce discrimination and conflict but in fact these ‘gordian knots’ protect us from systems of control. Who is more dangerous to a future fascist state, a proud Scotsman or Irishman descended from generations of rebels, or some rootless, amorphous world-citizen?

Get real about the Rohingya. Leaving aside the polemics and moral considerations the feasibility of a Myanmar government of expelling these “illegal immigrants” as some above have called the Rohingya (a blanket categorisation that, I like the majority of scholars, would not accept) is nil. Like for a future President Trump’s (God help us) plan for the 11 million undocumented migrants in the US, Bangladesh, like a wealthier country, Mexico, is not going to pay for a wall and certainly, as a very poor country itself, would be unwilling to accept a new wave of refugees.

So get real. These people are there to stay in Myanmar, although some may with the help of human traffickers and the complicity of the Burmese authorities, leave for Malaysia and elsewhere. The question therefore is what status will they be given. In 2010, 1 million were given voting rights (surely a sign of quasi citizenship) which were then withdrawn for the 2015 elections. So integration in the Myanmar nation has been contemplated even in the very recent past.

To be pragmatic, given the possibilities of significant foreign aid in resolving the Rohingya issue in part through the granting of citizenship, their presence may indeed become an economic plus in itself. This is not to mention – given the necessary investment in education, training and the promotion of women’s right – the contribution that this community could potentially bring to Myanmar as a whole in the future. On the contrary, detaining people stateless and unemployed in camps – as the example of the Palestinians demonstrates – is a recipe for future problems of even greater magnitude

If global HR & Democracy celebrity DASSK gets good media bumpf from having HR celeb Kofi head up a “commission”, maybe rather than bring in Donald “The Wall” Trump for her next HR & Democracy reality show she could get ex-POTUS Obama to come in and do his “run silent, run deep” deportation special for her.

Whereas Donald talks about a wall, Obama has deported 2.5 million vulnerable people from the USA.

And still, the “liberals” of the media and its academic niche division prefer to privilege the discourse over the reality of impoverished women and children being forced to return to the hell of their own countries.

I’m sure this is something that the majority of scholars would not accept.

Of course if they did and I had 10,000 kyat I could get myself a triple tall no-whip mocha at Starbucks when it opens in Yangon.

‘Detaining people stateless and unemployed in camps’ You mean like Australia? Since we are ‘getting real’ let’s consider the fact that in a generation or two, or perhaps even earlier, Bangladesh is GONE. The Bay of Bengal will extend far to the North and Myanmar will be faced with an influx of refugees greater than its own population.
Myanmar can’t afford to charter jets to return migrants home as Germany is now contemplating, but they can afford landmines and barbed wire. I know this appears harsh but it is unfortunately necessary. Migration across the world is currently measured in the millions but in a few decades it will be in the hundreds of millions. In the face of global agricultural collapse, water wars and repetitive natural disasters I can’t see any aid coming from the West for Myanmar let alone investment in ‘women’s rights’. Instead, I expect walls will go up across the globe, as everyone struggles to survive.

Myanmar will expel the Bangladeshi Muslim migrants within ten years. West Pakistan had no problem massacring 3 million East Pakistani Bengalis, Bangladesh (later) had no problem expelling 500,000 Hindus, and Vietnam and Burma and Cambodia had no problem expelling 1 million ethnic Chinese. In the last two instances, there was no basis for expulsion except racism and intolerance, as these were CITIZENS of their respective nations. Stop constantly bringing up TRUMP. Trump is not Burmese, last time I checked and the USA with illegals (mostly Hispanic) is NOT the same as Myanmar. I would have expected more from you than a trite comparison. Bangladesh MUST STOP using Myanmar as a human dumping ground. The fact that Bamar people have a better sense of birth control than Bengali Muslims IS NOT DASSK’S PROBLEM ! Sheikh Hasina Wajed is a coward, a liar and a blowhard, as is Khaleda Zia. They are the SAME. I repeat the Bengali Muslim problem in Rakhine is Bangladesh’s fault; it is the fault of individual Bengali Muslims who think they can get any wages in Myanmar when they got none back home (not Myanmar’s fault) and start evaluating global issues on a REAL moral basis, not an ideological one. Bengali Muslims have no rights in Myanmar simply because they happen to be there; Hindus and tribals, being slaughtered in Bangladesh, have rights because they are indigenous, and tribals predate Bengali Muslims by 10,000 years at least. This issue here is Islamic depravation, immorality, double-standards, hegemony, fascism, genocide, and inability to get along with anyone who isn’t Muslim. This is true from Morocco to Indonesia. Do NOT tell me Myanmar can’t, or doesn’t have the right to, expel all the Bengali Muslims in the nation, as no ASKED Myanmar citizens if they wanted them there. If Sheikh Hasina cares so much about Islam and Bengali culture she should be demanding them back, rather than treating her own people like animals. Where is the Bangladesh Conference of Minorities that DASSK had the good sense to initiate (Myanmar indigenous minorities). In Chittagong, next door, they simply hack them to death. I have had enough of NM bogus angst, very selective and no such
ennui ever shown for any victims of Islamic aggression.

In theory, Islam could be a very beneficial contributor to Myanmar’s society. In Islamic history there have been periods of great cultural exchange and advanced civilisation. In the present day there is an updated and educated version of Islam which is capable of friendly co-existence with any religion or culture.

Unfortunately, this is not the Islam of the mobs of uneducated Bangladeshis who take up machetes in response to anything unfamiliar or different. It is also not the Islam of innumerable ‘princes’ in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf who infect the world with their aberrant, medieval and totally intolerant beliefs.

Apart from erroneous versions of Islam, Myanmar faces two far greater external threats; a sinister dystopian China and an unhinged corporatist America.
Ordinarily, I am strongly opposed to ‘Thaification’ in Thailand, because it has suppressed the distinctive cultures of Isaan and Lanna. However, in the light of external threats and an increasingly unstable world, it may be that forced assimilation and extreme Burmese nationalism are the only practical way forward for Myanmar.
If necessary, long live King Edward Taw Phaya!

Bangladeshi Islam which is now Deobandi Islam and not more moderate Shaf’i or even Hanafi Islam has nothing at all good to offer Myanmar. The continued effort of armchair academics to push DASSK and Myanmar to suit foreign Western ideological catharsis is stupid. The illegal Bangladeshi migrants will be expelled; they are source of instability in Myanmar. The northern Indian Muslim community in urban areas (Yangon, etc.) who came in with the British, in some cases earlier, have established roots in Myanmar and should be differentiated from the faux “Rohingya”. No amount of NM folderol will change the fact that Myanmar is not an Islamic State and many Bangladeshis wish that it were. At the least it could be a continuous excuse for them to procreate without birth control at will and they certainly would do to the Bamar, what ISIS is doing to the Yezidi, if given the opportunity; they certainly seem to enjoy beheading Hindus and Christians in Bangladesh. DASSK is no fool. She knows what Hizbut Tahrir is and she knows Bangladesh is unstable.

I am not German, Mr Wilson, and it should be Sehr Geehrter Herr Professor Cohen were I German. I propose what I have already stated; the Bangladeshi Muslims must be repatriated to Bangladesh immediately and all Bengali Christians, Hindus and Hill Tract Asian tribal animists and Christians be allowed into Myanmar and give initial permanent residence and then citizsenhip. Since Bengali Muslims cannot get along with non-Muslims, and Burmese can, they would fare better in Myanmar. Since Burmese and ethnic Rakhine Muslims do not want Bangladehi Muslim in Myanmar, to which they have no historical and cultural ties, they belong in Bangladesh. I note Bangladesh had no problem exporting thousands of Bengali Muslims to Malaysia, where they do menial work, and even though they are Muslims like the Malays, are not entirely well-received. I will remind for the umpteenth time, that any mass killing of Bangladeshi Muslims happened in Kelantan, Malaysia, where mass graves of Bangladeshis were found, the reasonable culprits being Malays and/or Pattani (Patani) Malays. I have yet to see one report of a mass grave of “Rohingya” in any portion of Myanmar. Finally, I propose Mr Wilson, you and your minions stop posting obvious rhetorical questions, to which you do not want answers. Your minds were already brainwashed quite a while ago. Guten tag.

“In theory Islam can be beneficial” Ha ha ha … The next beneficial theory : Asteroid striking Earth can be beneficial…
I think the two theories works in about the same way as far as benefits go..

A 15th century, kill thy neighbours mindset is never never going to be beneficial.. even for the perpetrators..

This next statement is out of context, but is a need to know :
A malaysia State Govt (Trengannu) just passed a law that puts Muslims in jail for 2 years if they missed Friday’s prayers. Here is the middle finger to those who still tout malaysia as a moderate islamic country..

Just because secularism piggy-backs on science doesn’t make it special or superior, it’s just a philosophy, like any other. Unfortunately, it is one that has become increasingly intolerant of other philosophies.
Secularism actually has zero chance of prevailing against the world’s religions. So it would be better to simply accept the fact that others are entitled to hold different views.

The problem is not with Suu Kyi or anyone, but with I-have-better-morals-than-the-Burmese-out-there folks out there. There is an ongoing movement in the West namely MY-values-better-and-MY-feelings-matter movement. Rapid advances in IT and automation have pushed most Westerners out of jobs and left them with no choice but become rent-seeking human rights or social justice warriors. Today, more than 12 percent of jobs in America depend on the existence of problems, such as ‘gender or racial inequality,’ etc. If these problems do not exist, the unemployment rate would be around 17 percent.

SO practical solutions to these problem mean you are attacking people’s livelihoods, and they would respond by searching more problems, a search that may sometimes reach overseas, or pointing out that the problem still exists, often in imaginary ways. Today, the smartest graduates would go for STEM and those in the low percentiles would go for retails and food service. But those in the middle have nothing to do: being a waiter does not fit for their dignity, and other jobs have already been automated. So, they are forced into being rent-seeking HR and social justice warriors. It is a sad tragedy of the modern world.

Now, in terms of Rohingya problem, you see the rent-seeking network is well-organized from the bottom. You have Rohingya who will supply journalists with ‘horrible tales’ which cannot be verified because they need aid and asylum. (Note: I do not dispute that their situation is terrible but sadly, their leaders are more responsible for it by insisting on a made-up ethnicity for ulterior political gains. Also I don’t believe in rape, murder allegations because similar incidences have been proven to be false not only in Myanmar.) Then the journalists will report without any fact check because their profession has been increasingly replaced by social media and are anxious to get clicks. Then we have human rights preachers whose employment depends on the existence of the problem. They will say this and that and ask for donations.

In the end, the rent-seeking behavior will only exacerbate in the future and the problem will never be solved to satisfy HR groups because you see, their existence depends on existence of problems. The problems replicate everywhere all over the world. The solution lies in reducing working hours in the Western World and then giving everyone a chance to work in productive endeavors instead of rent-seeking.

Extremely graphic photos of the bloodied and naked bodies of two Kachin volunteer teachers, who were allegedly raped and murdered by the army in northern Shan state, have circulated widely among the Kachin community over the past 24 hours.

So he wrote a letter to President Thein Sein, a former general, telling him how the army had killed his daughter in what witnesses say was a burst of gunfire. He sent a complaint to Myanmar’s human rights commission, launched just four years ago. He asked for an investigation.

What happened next shattered his faith. He got the court case he wanted — but it was not the army that was put on trial.
It was the bereaved father himself.

A United Nations spokesperson has clarified that a senior UN official who visited northern Arakan State last week did not categorically deny rape allegations made by Rohingya women living in the region, contrary to reports by state media.

All of a sudden these Saintly and over protective journalists and Rights employees in Fridg-ed Pajero’s (whereas they used to own run down sandals at best few years back) ignore all the US’s and US friendly countries’ real crimes (please bring a Terabyte storage disc for the list) and started lecturing everyone about how despicable they are- Duterte/ Putin and Assad are the great Satans.

And then hope to be taken seriously. It really smudge the issue and they do immense disservice tot eh one they are pretending to care.

Ethnocentric Crap…what is “their 15th century mentality”? I am glad someone like you is not a teacher of history in the school that our kids go to and surely no university would put up with your “ethnocentrism”. Plus of course reluctant to identify yourself: one of the obvious signs of cowardliness and lack of moral courage.

The United Nations is getting daily reports of rapes and killings of the Rohingya minority in Burma’s Arakan State and independent monitors are being barred from investigating, the UN human rights office said on Friday.

A correspondent for BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, who spent four days visiting the camps in southeastern Cox’s Bazar district, reported that 17 of the 54 Rohingya women she interviewed said they were raped while Myanmar’s military launched a brutal crackdown in northern Rakhine state after nine police officers were attacked and killed by an armed Rohingya insurgent group in October.

Burma on Saturday rejected the UN rights council’s decision to investigate allegations that security officers have murdered, raped and tortured Rohingya Muslims, saying the probe would only “inflame” the conflict.

Burma’s foreign affairs ministry on Saturday stopped short of saying it would block the UN-backed probe but said it “has dissociated itself from the resolution as a whole.”

“The establishment of an international fact-finding mission would do more to inflame, rather than resolve the issues at this time,” it added.

Burma is carrying out its own domestic inquiry into possible crimes in Arakan.

But rights groups and the UN have dismissed the body, which is led by retired general turned Vice President Myint Swe, as toothless.

Falang is a Muslim apologist for Dakwah. The same report is recycled over and over again. Where are the women who were raped ? Any forensic DNA evidence of rape ? Where are the mass pits with dead bodies ? There is no genocide, not one piece of evidence has been brought forth except fake news, and this is another in a long line of Taqiyya reporting.

Rohingya militants call for international peacekeeping troops
29 March 2017

A nascent Rohingya militant group whose raids triggered a bloody crackdown by Burma’s army called Wednesday for international peacekeepers to protect the stateless Muslim minority.

Attacks on police border posts in northern Arakan State in October claimed by the group, which now calls itself the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ASRA), sparked a crackdown by security forces that sent tens of thousands fleeing to Bangladesh.

In a statement widely shared by Rohingya activists outside of Burma, the outfit said it had acted to “defend, salvage and protect [the] Rohingya community in Arakan.”

“We have the legitimate right under international law to defend ourselves in line with the principle of self-defence,” it said.

About the Author

Ronan Lee is researching the impact of Myanmar’s political and economic liberalisation on the Muslim Rohingya. He is a PhD candidate at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University.

Ronan’s professional background is in politics. He was formerly a Queensland State Member of Parliament and Parliamentary Secretary and has worked as a policy and campaigns advisor.

Ronan has travelled extensively in Myanmar, first visiting the country to witness the political changes associated with its transition from direct military rule to a quasi-civilian government. He witnessed Myanmar’s 2010 general election and met with opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi shortly after her release from house arrest.

His PhD research examines how Myanmar’s recent liberalisations have affected the country’s Rohingya Muslims.